ninja05

I have been running 10K fronts and 8K rears on my Ohlins at 9 clicks from full stiff. I have a Whiteline rear sway on the softest setting, tire pressures at 36/34 psi F/R. I used to run 10K rears but it just didn't feel right for my driving style/preference. But with the 10K rears I think I was running 14 clicks from full stiff in the front and 10 clicks in the rear. Suspension was tuned by Miles at GTWorx.

Zergburger

Ninja,

Could you elaborate on the differences in the car when going from the 10k/10k setup to the 10k/8k?

I am fairly certain I'm going to purchase the Ohlins coilovers, but i'm having a hard time getting quality information on the differences when changing spring rates.

Most posts go something like 'I upped the rear rate to 11k, car feels awesome now.'

As you can see, that information means almost nothing to someone who does not have experience with a similar setup.

ADDENDUM: I am mostly deciding between purchasing and installing the ohlins with the factory 10k/7k springs, or going straight to a 10k/10k setup. Perhaps I will start with the factory springs and change them up later if I feel the need.

mrfred

iTrader: (50)

I have thought quite a bit about why Ohlins decided to use 10K/8K while the factory suspension has the exact opposite spring rate ratio. I think there are two factors at play. One is that the Ohlins front damper gives up a lot of wheel travel. Stock has a just a little less than six inches of travel while Ohlins has barely more than four inches. The rear Ohlins however has almost as much travel as stock, so in order to keep the front from bottoming out before the rear and causing on/off push, a higher front spring rate is needed. The other issue is that lowering the front suspension by the Ohlin's recommended 1.25 inches definitely hurts dynamic camber, so to combat that, more front spring is used. This is of course all just a guess. In practice, I don't know that the Ohlin's ratio works that well. I have been happy with even spring rates, and I suspect that 10K/10K (or 9K/9K) would be a good combo for many people, especially if something is done to fix the front camber.

Blue_Lion

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Zergburger

The ohlins factory "suggested" setup only lowers the car 25mm front and rear, and you can adjust +/- 15mm from there.

So you can set up the car to only be about 10mm (0.40") lower than stock if you want.

ninja05

Sorry for the late reply. I think a lot of this will depend on your other suspension mods, particularly sway bars. I initially started off with the 10k/7k off-the-shelf Ohlins set up, with a Whiteline rear sway bar, Whiteline RCK, and front control arm bushings. The car handled well for the most part, though it was biased towards understeer (rear sway on middle setting). I felt the 7k rear was too soft. The front would set in nicely on turn-in, but it always seemed as if the rears took an extra second to set. When I stepped up to a 10k/10k set up, my car had a tendency to oversteer, especially if I was accelerating through a curve. I moved the rear sway bar to the softest setting, but it still oversteered a bit too much for my liking. My car is a daily driver, with the majority of my commute on narrow, back roads. I imagine the bias towards oversteer is what some people want, especially if they track/autox. For me driving on these back roads, I preferred a set up that was more neutral, with maybe a hint of understeer bias. Anyhow, I met up with Myles at GTWORX to see if maybe it was just me, maybe I just needed to get the car set up and I would be fine. After driving my car he actually suggested I drop the rears to 8k, which I ended up doing. The 10/8 set up handled very well; it was very neutral.

Now... I replaced my clutch recently so with everything out of the way, I threw in a front sway bar. I think the game changed after the front sway install because the car understeered again, due to the front tires reaching load capacity sooner from the bigger front sway bar. With a front and rear sway installed, I think a square set up is the way to go. I ended up selling the Ohlins, but my current coils are on 9k/9k and it's very neutral. I have my sways set on the softest setting, but I may move the rear to the middle. Hope that helps!

Zergburger

Thanks for the info!
My car is completely stock suspension as of right now.
When you described your handling goals, you describe almost perfectly where I want the car to be. Not as much understeer as stock, but since i'm dailying the car I do not want to remove all of it.
A set of rear springs seems fairly cheap, so I'm pretty set on starting with the stock 10/7 springs when i purchase my ohlins, and deciding after I drive the setup for a while.

ninja05

mrfred

iTrader: (50)

The manual that I downloaded when I bought my R&T's says that for the front suspension, "With both the preload and height adjustments in their standard positions, the vehicle is lowered approximately 35 mm when compared to the original suspension." That's closer to 1.25 inches than one inch. :-). Might as well mention that for the rear, the manual says the rear is lowered 30 mm compared to factory suspension.

Also, just to be clear, Ohlins R&T comes as 10 kg/mm front and 8 kg/mm rear (also stated in the manual).

mrfred

iTrader: (50)

One other comment is that if you regularly have passengers in the rear seat of your Evo and have stuff in the trunk as I do when carting the family around on weekends, the rear sags pretty badly even with my current square 8K/8K setup. It will be more apparent with the 10K/8K setup.

2x4

mrfred

iTrader: (50)

Oops. Sorry I missed that this thread is in the Evo 10 section. Interesting that Ohlins did 7K at the rear of the Evo 10. I wonder if the motion ratio is not as strong for the Evo 10 or whether there is some other significant difference.

Mitzbitz

Use the Ohlins myself on my road car which also does alot of track days. Raising the rear spring rates really helps dial out the understeer the X's have especially on the track. Otherwise you end up compensating with stiffening the rear sway to achieve the same thing but can then lead to lifting rear inside wheel. My thought is you want all four on the black stuff so I prefer to use spring over sway bar. As to spring rates I'm running some pretty significant rates, yes its bumpy on the road but has woken up the car on track days.

kikiturbo

evo X has close to 1:1 rear motion ratio...
Also, from what I have seen on the evo 9, the AYC cars tend to have less understeer than those with mechanical rear diff, so on the road they can live better with 10/8 or 10/8.. makes for a more user friendly balance.. on the track you notice the understeer though..